Fedora Connecting People

It will be meaningless to review Fedora 18, because everything seems to be the same as it was in beta version.

….

Fedora & GNOME

Fedora 18 delivers a pure GNOME (3.6) experience and by that I mean that Fedora tries to offer the experience that GNOME Developers envision for their Desktop. All GNOME dependencies and libraries are here in their latest versions to make sure you will get the very best out of GNOME. No fallbacks, no extra tools (ie extra control centers) are here. I am not saying that is bad or good, is just the way it is.

Fedora is pushing GNOME experience further by adopting a new installation environment that respects GNOME HIG(Human Interface Guidelines), and they might include GNOME Initial Setup in Fedora 19.

Fedora 18 is for ..?

..anyone! That is the short answer. Beyond that, Fedora is specially good for people who work with RHEL and RHEL-like Servers, people who develop applications for GNOME and people that want to keep an upstream GNOME release with JHBuild, as JHBuild works without serious issues in Fedora, something that isn’t always true for other distros.

Other than this, people that do Web Development will be also very pleased with Fedora as it is very very fast and it will save you some time.

Fedora 18 isn’t for people that want to install and try as much software as is available under Linux. Application discovery is hard in Fedora (really bad Gnome Software Center and no good alternatives), and also Applications are not getting update frequently (at least that was the case in previous Fedora’s).

In my opinion if you are running another distro and you are happy with this, there isn’t some strong reason to switch to Fedora.

Community Support

If you visit IRC #Fedora Channel in Freenode (which you have to be registered to join!?!) and ask a simple (for them, complicated for you) question, there is a high possibility to get some sarcastic answer back. Fedora’s IRC is a really bad channel for an Open Source/Community project. Fedorians should pay some attention to it.

However with a bit Googling you will find many tutorials around for issues you might have, but still the guides are not so good as in other Distros. Fortunately there is Fedora’s Documentation Project that is one of the best, but it doesn’t bothered so much with problems.

In short, community support is average, not good in any case, and this is something you have to take into consideration before you try Fedora.

Fedora 18 and Windows 8

People that want to have a Dual Boot with with Windows 8 should pay attention to it:

Using the fast restart feature of Windows 8 and rebooting into Fedora may lead to data loss. Files written to the Windows partition by Fedora may be deleted when rebooting into Windows 8. This may be avoided by disabling the fast restart feature in Windows 8. Read More

If you are going to use Fedora is a good idea to check on their release notes. You never know what can go wrong ;)

FirewallD

Fedora 18 introduce a new dynamic Firewall which is on by default. If you are running any kind of servers (ie Torrents) you might need to check a bit more on that.

Notice that in addition to GStreamer packages in previous Fedora, you now need to install the GStreamer1. For example:

$ sudo yum install gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free

Overall

Fedora 18 is a very very good release. However Fedora traditionally gives different experiences per installation and use, and for one successful story there is also an unsuccessful one. I have only good things to say about it ;)

I never used UGSR. If you mean UGR, the only reason I can think is if you do GNOME development. Other than this, no reason at all.

PromoteCommonSense

I kind of had the same question as gutigen. Not being a Gnome developer, would Gnome 3 on Fedora be a better gnome experience than Gnome 3 on Ubuntu Gnome Remix? I am a fan of Gnome 3 and I am looking for a distro to use for general desktop work but have always heard that Fedora is best for developers *buntu for general desktop use. Does Fedora 18 change that?

The full Infinality-font-patch-experience has official support for Fedora only. Using that, Facebook looks decent with Lucida Grande, and the new Microsoft fonts look as intended with Hungarian accents.

Craig

* systemd is a much better init system
* Fedora doesn’t have crapware and spyware pre-installed (Ubuntu One, Amazon shopping lens, Ubuntu Music Store, etc.).
* Despite what some people say, Fedora packages are far better scrutinized than Ubuntu/Debian packages. Debian and Ubuntu had a serious flaw in their SSH key generator that went unnoticed for 2 years(!!).

* Red Hat engineers are the guys who do most of the work on upstream GNOME/Kernel/userspace. Canonical are just a branding and marketing company.
* Ubuntu have made consistently bad decisions about what default packages to include, and most of the Ubuntu “developer” community seem utterly clueless about sane engineering trade-offs.
* Mark Shuttlecock is just in it for the lulz. He’s no visionary. He’s more interesting in perceptions than reality.

Lx495

This is a proper question. I tried Ubuntu Gnome Remix (snappy name eh) and whatever secret sauce Canonical/Ubuntu concocted to make their fonts look gorgeous, like thick india ink on lush writing paper, they’re keeping it to themselves. I can see why.

http://twitter.com/pahnin phanindra

I’m trying to upgrade from fedora 17 using fedup but it says that iso image is invalid!?

This tells me as a woman that I don’t use GNOME, only my boyfriend does, and that it’s okay for him to use my inexperience with it as an excuse to come over and earn sexual favours (or stay away and have nothing to do with me). Even though we both use it, I’ve developed for it, and I’m the one who helped him get it set up on his netbook.

I’m sorry, this isn’t funny. Not when GNOME’s having to pay thousands of dollars already to attract women to help with the platform, via the Outreach Program. Shit like this is the reason most of us are staying away. We know that we’ll never be fully accepted, and you’ll always write as though straight cis guys were the only people in GNOME.

I think I’m done reading this blog.

alex285

Hey Taryn!
Obviously I don’t mean it as you think I did. I’m not that kind of person. I am sorry if you took it wrong :(

http://jewelfox.dreamwidth.org/ Taryn Fox

No, you’re not the kind of guy who means to drive women away from my favourite Free Software project. You are the kind of guy who just did whether he meant to or not.

If I say something really offensive and stupid to you, I don’t get to get out of it by saying “it was just a joke.” That goes double for when the target of your joke is a group of people so vulnerable that the GNOME Foundation is paying real money to attract them to the project, to make up for crap like this.

And in this one case, the level of thought and caring was shown to be below par. The other cases don’t disprove this one.

Máirín Duffy

Too bad you just canceled out all of those efforts with one careless and gross post.

Craig

Tech is a sausage-fest because it’s still one of the few true meritocracies left. Most other industries have already caved in to “equal opportunities” and allow women to get ahead via office politics and other such coercive (but not productive) means. Unfortunately that shit don’t fly when you’re in a competitive game — you either come up with the goods or GTFO.

“Equal opportunities” is a fundamentally bullshit idea — women simply have fewer opportunities because they are inherently less capable than men at almost everything.

Why don’t women race men in the Olympic 100m? Why aren’t there many (non-token) women CEOs? Because when it gets really competitive, the feminist rhetoric breaks down and they realise they’re simply not up to the task.

Keep talking and campaigning for “awareness” ladies, it’s so cute.

Andrea Veri

Hey Máirín, I had a little talk with Alex lately and he was really sorry for what happened, however not all the bad things come to harm, and this is the case where he learnt something important from the whole discussion. Thanks for bringing in your concerns.

7svito

Can you fix article and clarify what you really mean by that or delete fully bad joke? Because at the end of the week there will be more offended people and that will do harm your reputation…

lz

Alex, it’s not about “taking it wrong”. It’s the fact that what you said was incredibly offensive in the first place, and the fact that when somebody points this out to you, your first reaction is that there’s something wrong with *them*.

People make mistakes, and this particular mistake being made many, many times over is one that is *very actively harming* the image of the GNOME community (and the tech community in general), both driving women away and making the women who *are* participating think twice about it. There’s no need to be defensive about it — don’t apologize because someone “took it wrong”, acknowledge and apologize for the fact that you said something offensive in the first place. And then try to have some empathy and understand why they interpreted it the way they did, and do your best not to make the same mistake in the future.

I see that you’ve responded to another comment saying that you thought about including “screenshots” of the “hot” and “ugly” girlfriends. This doesn’t help me believe you’re “not that kind of person”. It’s little things like this, ones which people think are harmless, that say the most about what a person thinks, consciously or not.

alex285

I see. I recognize it, I apology, I delete it. What else can I do?

lz

Thank you. I personally appreciate that you took the comments that I and other women left here seriously.

As for what else you can do: being more mindful of things like this in the future is a good start! Then these comment threads can be about the things we’re *really* here for in the first place, and it’s better for everyone all around.

Bethly

It’s not about being any “kind” of person. Obviously you do think sexist things sometimes, or you wouldn’t have written the original post, but that’s not the point. I’d recommend watching Jay Smooth’s TEDx talk (www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbdxeFcQtaU) for a more complete description of why “but I’m not a sexist!” is an irrelevant and derailing response.

Philip Witte

Sheesh, Alex’s joke might have been a bit distasteful, making a joke about hot/ugly girlfriends is, no doubt, a “boys club” move, but damn, grow some thicker skin. Statistically speaking, this IS a “boys club”, and I’m sure Alex knows that about his readers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we all wouldn’t love to see an equal number of women involved with Gnome, nor should anyone endure racial or sexual slander, but when most of your readers are guys, making a joke “for the guys” isn’t really a huge deal, and doesn’t necessitate you avoiding this blog, and surely this isn’t the reason most women are “staying away”.

I’m not saying the joke was professional. Taunting people for aesthetic reasons isn’t the best way to make friends with everyone.. especially in the Geek crowd ;-) Also, I can see how you would feel more targeted because of your minority status, but I highly doubt Alex intended it as slanderous to women. Both sexes enact behavior and seize opportunity to get in the other’s good graces… largely motivated by sexual desire. This is a fact of life, and you really should feel so defensive about people making light of it. Had the opposite joke had been made on “The View” I’m sure no one would bat an eye-lash, due to the largely female audience.

I would agree that these kinds of jokes ideally shouldn’t make an appearance here. This isn’t a house-wives TV show, it’s a blog about a DE. And your displeasure about it should be heard, I’m just saying you’re making it too big of a deal.

One of the things I like best about Open-Source communities is that people who develop don’t feel the need to be so damn “politically correct”. Linus Torvalds says “Fuck You” and gives nVidia the finger and everyone laughs… can you imagine the media outroar if the CEO of Microsoft did the same thing?

lz

Option 1: Stay silent about these continued and incredibly common microaggressions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression). Smile, nod, and perpetuate the “boys club” culture, because statistically speaking, your feelings towards a joke made at the expense of stereotyping your minority group are not significant.

Option 2: Say something about them, because the “boys club” culture is not one that you believe should continue throughout perpetuity and maybe others in the community can start viewing your minority group as more than a “stupid at computers” stereotype. This often takes CONSCIOUS effort, given how much gender and other stereotypes/prejudices are ingrained in our brains.

I prefer Option 2, and I think that’s the one that requires thicker skin.

(I also wonder: why don’t YOU grow a thicker skin? Are you really so sensitive to hearing that this sexist bullshit offends a portion of your community that you feel the ned to defend it in multiple paragraphs?)

Philip Witte

“boys club” culture? I understand many people are racist and sexist, but please do not project that onto the whole of society. I am all for equality among people of all creeds. That doesn’t change the fact that stereotypes DO exist, and that they have a place in humor. All comedians make fun of someone in their jokes, and they are just professional joke tellers.

I never said you should just smile and nod. In fact I said the opposite, that your displeasure should be heard, and that the joke was unprofessional. I also said it’s not a as big a deal as she was making it, blaming “boys club” jokes as the reason women aren’t as many in the IT crowd.

Also, your attempt to somehow paint me as the one with thin-skin is very transparently flawed. I didn’t threaten to never read her responses again, or blame her for the poor jokes of comedians, and your response to mine was almost as many paragraphs… not that it matters. The amount of words we use to express our arguments has no bearing on their merit.

Máirín Duffy

Blah blah blah. You’re not helping your case here.

Philip Witte

I don’t care much about your baseless assertions. If you have constructive arguments, I’m game. Otherwise, by making statements like that, it’s you who’s not helping your case

http://twitter.com/eosadler Bess Sadler

Is nVidia a traditionally disadvantaged group that regularly faces discrimination and has been historically excluded from technology? I don’t think they are, so it doesn’t seem like a valid comparison to me, and Linus is welcome to continue giving them the finger and get no argument from me. Have people who watch “The View” formed a club that you are trying to get access to because you care about what they’re building, but their use of exclusionary language makes you feel like you can’t participate? I don’t think that’s true either, so again, your logic does not follow for me.

I also don’t understand why you think seeking to improve this project by helping to shape its public perception is “making too big of a deal” about anything. Bugs need to be reported and fixed. Commenters who are asking for clarification on other subjects are not “making too big of a deal,” I guess, but commenters who would like to discuss the way gender is treated somehow are? Again, this does not seem logically consistent to me.

Philip Witte

So you think the IT industry, at large, is a place when women feel they can’t participate because of bad jokes… and that’s why there’s not as many women? Really? What sets the IT industry apart from any other work environment? You don’t think there are sexist jokes made in other industries where woman have a larger presence?

I’m not saying it’s not largely cultural, or that women are somehow inferior to men. I am saying that there ARE difference between the sexes, even mental ones (it should be obvious since we’re attracted to different things, and attraction is a mental compulsion), and that those difference can lead to, generally speaking, different career pursuits and interests.

Lets pretend, for the sake of argument, that’s it’s entirely cultural. Even then, in any community largely dominated by men, it’s natural that there will be these “boys club” jokes, just as (per my “The View” example) in any community largely dominated by women there will be “girls club” jokes. Expressing your distaste for the jokes isn’t a problem. I’m happy more women are interested in IT these days. That said, threatening to never read a blog again then blaming this naturally emergent behavior of flawed-lifeform (human) communities on the jokes themselves isn’t doing anyone any good. Calling a blog post “disgusting” and “a disgrace” to Fedora and Gnome over a single joke (which was based on a real-life situation, BTW) is just over the top. It’s not addressing the fundamental cause, which is that women haven’t _wanted_ to work in IT due to their cultural upbringing (sticking to our presupposition).

You bring up that “The View” isn’t an institution that I’m trying to get into. I think you’d agree, that it’s a group most men wouldn’t _want_ to be a part of. Why do you think that is? Because we would feel excluded by sexist jokes? I doubt that’s the reason. Maybe The View isn’t the best example here, since it’s a general talk-show, but I think you get my point. If you want to make the argument that women _want_ to be in IT, but opt-out early because of abuse language… just show me the numbers where many woman start IT degrees, then switch majors… even if you could (which i doubt), you’d still have to prove that they switched due to abuse, rather than lack of interest.

PS. The Linus reference wasn’t a direct comparison, only an illustration about how this community is more relaxed about the verbiage it uses, because they can be without threat of loosing jobs. People do and say things in everyday life all the time that they would never, as the representative of a for-profit company, publicly say or do, in fear that their jobs would be in jeopardy.

Craig

Dog eat dog. Being “disadvantaged” is irrelevant.

These “boys club” guys see women as less technically able and mostly irrelevant to the technical ecosystem. Do you think just talking and complaining about it will solve that?

Do something impressive, make yourself an icon for women it tech, but for *fucks* sake stop simply complaining. All you are doing is confirming the notion that you want to be seen as a charity case instead of a peer. “Awww, poor women, they haven’t accomplished much and there’s no well known female technologist, but they’ve done such a good job of complaining about it, let’s completely forget about the meritocracy and give them some undeserved recognition.”

Oh shut the fuck up you freak. You don’t have a boyfriend. And pipe down with your pathetic feminist sob story.

http://jewelfox.dreamwidth.org/ Taryn Fox

Oh, this also tells me as a woman that the only thing about me that matters is whether I’m “hot” or “ugly” and whether or not I have a boyfriend. The guys get to be judged on how well they code, but for me it’s just a bonus and isn’t what really matters.

Craig

So… how well do you code? Created anything useful recently (talking and complaining don’t count)?

Tracy Hurley

What the heck is up with the dumb girlfriend reference? Seriously, it’s not cool.

fffalcon

With the divide in the tech world between men and women, compounded by media consistently reminding women that they are not equal to men, in whatever way, it is imperative…let me restate that, IMPERATIVE that as creators (and purveyors) of content we are aware of our language. You have chosen to take on a responsibility to drive this industry forward. Please take that responsibility seriously.

Do not apologize for your words, they are a by-product of a mindset that has been burned into our culture. If you would like to see more collaboration and success in this industry I strongly recommend that you rethink the way you think. We must rise above…and you can do better.

PS: Even the default avatar on this site resembles the male form, might want to do something about that.

http://twitter.com/eosadler Bess Sadler

LOL at the classic “How can you say I’m being sexist just because I made public sexist comments?” You really need to re-write this post. People retract poorly considered blog posts all the time, your journalistic integrity won’t suffer from changing what you wrote. On the other hand, leaving it in place means you are continuing to send the message that women don’t use Linux (or just don’t use it by choice?), that the “you” addressed in your writing refers only to heterosexual men, that a woman’s attractiveness is her primary measure of worth, and that you do not actually care about the fact that these messages are damaging to women, you plan to continue sending those messages anyway.

I am so glad that in other areas of your open source involvement you have found ways to encourage an inclusive open source culture. However, in this instance you are failing to do so. There’s no need to make this into a major argument, please just fix your alienating and exclusionary language, as you have been asked to do now twice by women in the Linux community.

Thank you.

iOSdev

The girlfriend stuff is not only sexist, it’s also not funny and makes you sound incredibly stupid. And the “sorry to those who took it wrong” is the icing on the cake on the stupid part.

Bethly

We didn’t take it wrong: you assumed your audience was male and would be amused by jokes about technically-incompetent women. It’s not our problem that you made sexist assumptions; it would be more productive to educate yourself instead of trying (unsuccessfully) to dodge responsibility by making non-apologies.

Máirín Duffy

Time to grow up. What a disgusting article. What a disgrace for Fedora and GNOME to be pulled down by this filth.

http://twitter.com/eosadler Bess Sadler

I am baffled at how someone who programs computers can make the argument, “I know I said x, but I MEANT y, doesn’t that count?” No, in natural language, like in computer code, it is what you ACTUALLY SAY that matters. Regardless of your intent, you have written something that is damaging to women. When you write software that has a bug in it, and someone helpfully points that out, you probably don’t respond defensively and claim that because your intentions were good the bug doesn’t need fixing. Please extend that logic to your non-code writing as well.

Máirín Duffy

Well at least you have enough of a sense of shame to delete my comments. I disagree quite strongly that it would be ‘irresponsible’ to edit your post. In fact, it’s irresponsible to leave it as it is, and it’s actively hurting the two projects involved.

alex285

I didn’t delete any comment. However I delete the post. Mistakes is for the people. Hope you accept my apologies.

Máirín Duffy

Thank you, I greatly appreciate that you took down the offensive material! It was the right thing to do. :)

http://twitter.com/eosadler Bess Sadler

Thank you for deleting that paragraph! I really appreciate your willingness to listen to the feedback of your community, even when it isn’t feedback that’s fun to hear. That is the mark of a mature community leader. Bravo.

gutigen

To all women from GNOME and nonGNOME community – grow some balls and deal with reality. Whining will not get You ladies anywhere, it’s only strengthening Your weak and insecure (about your own work) image in boys minds :) The only way to change it is by making great code, not pinpointing bad, sexist jokes at community hubs.

Philip Witte

haha… i can’t help but see the irony (and potential outrage) at telling ladies to “grow some balls” concerning their reaction to a sexist joke.

Zsolt

Just let me remind you that two of the most awesome GNOME Women have showed up here (n.b.: GNOME Women are awesome in general, period). They do great stuff, and they are pretty good at it.

gutigen

Oh yea? “most awesome GNOME Women” – this sounds like a discrimination. Yes it does. Are they good at it (“great stuff”) for a women? Man, you do not helping here. Those ladies are “GNOME devs/designers/putproperdescriptionhere”, gender is irrelevant :)

http://jewelfox.dreamwidth.org/ Taryn Fox

… he said, in defense of a sexist “joke.”

We want gender to be irrelevant, but we keep being reminded that “lol women don’t use Linux” and that “lol girls I think are ugly are worthless.”

Craig

Nope, you’re just noticing a few exceptions in an otherwise pretty balanced society due to your own incredibly insecurity. I’m sorry you feel so ugly. Maybe counselling is in order?

http://jewelfox.dreamwidth.org/ Taryn Fox

Women don’t need to grow balls. And yours seem especially sensitive.

gutigen

Sensitive how? Anyway, almost 200,000 years of homo sapiens with different gender roles in society and you think that women can suddenly compete in (theoretically) men’s tasks without growing balls? Funny :)

I only disagree with you in one thing: Fedora 17 was already the first rookie-proof version in my book! Everything else is fine and dandy. Fedora. like no other. xD

what!!

Export Regulation?? Freedom, Friends,….?? Ironic

http://twitter.com/vicparragarcia Víc Asecas

I just want to say there’s a BIG community of gay people using Linux and Gnome… So it isn’t just for straight guys… :)

karim

Fedora 18 is great, i leave Ubuntu Gnome Remix 12.10 for it…and i ‘m happy to have change

BVD79

Same here… but i miss one or two repos in ubuntu.

BVD79

I went back to UGR last night.. My fedora wasn’t faster than UGR and some things are still difficult or impossible for the moment to fix. Ubuntu Gnome Shell Remix 12.10 is still reliable with apport-gtk delited :)

Ryan

What the heck is up with this FemiNazi lynch mob? Put your bras back on a get a grip.